Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-06-04
SUNDAYS SERMONS.
The Unpalatable Doctrine Of Damna-
ton for Unbelief Forcibly
Attacked.
What Scientists Believe, and What
They Reject.
A D. DIS Divinity Doctored a Little

EDITOR STANDARD:-We have
had during the week that is passing
a distinguished presence among us.
No less a parsonage indeed than a
real, live, aggressive and progressive
Doctor of Divinity from away beyond
the great Father Of waters, "where
the mighty Missouri rolls down to
the sea-" andthe event is not of such
commonplace, every day occurrence
that an alert, live chronicler like the
STANDARD will allow it to pass with
out specific mention.
We bid the doctor a hearty welcome
to our hospitable shores and happy
hearth stones, and trust he has been
so caressed and refreshed by the soft
and balmy breezes of this delightful
cline and season that the spirit may
move him to come and see us again.
In turn we were much pleased with
him. We found him in the very
prime of his early manhood, in '"the
old age of his YOUTH" so to speak,
carrying a we'll balanced head on
ample shoulders, genial and good
natured, of classical scholarship, OF
liberal culture, a graceful and fluent
utterance.
He occupied the pulpit of the Cum,
berland Presbyterian church on last
Sabbath, morning and evening, and
delivered two sermons quite unlike
in quality, and of very unequal
merit.
The morning sermon, while proba.
bly, not very remarkable for either
depth or doctrine, was yet in many.
or most respects, quite a model dis
course, being solid as well as trans.
parent in substance, clothed in chaste
and elegant language, elevated and
refined in sentiment, it kindled and
fed the nobler instincts of the inner
man and stimulated his aspirations
for a better life and for better things
There is hardly any occasion to ex'
patiate on this sermon, becauseit may
be pronounced on the whole Every
good" and it cannot be fairly amend.
able to adverse criticism. Nothing
Of the kind, however, can be justly
and truthfully said of the Doctor
evening discourse, and it is not en-
titled, simply because it was a ser
mon, to be shielded from adverse
comment. We are not aware tina.
anything like the odor of sanctity o.
intallibility attaches to a sermon a.
such, and the preacher who stand:
before an audience as the ministel
and interpreter Of divine things
should be held to as strict an account
ability for his deliverances as thu
lecturer who deals only in such sub
lunary matters as literature, science
and politics.
While some of his auditors were de
lighted with the mornings discours,
and went about Dragging on him TO
it, and claiming citizenship will
him in the same state, the same per
sons were kept busy the next ola,
hedging and taking back what the.
had said of him the day previously
The sermon was remarkably loose il
structure, incoherent in statement
utterly sophistical in logic, and care
less to an astonishing degree, not t
qualify statements, which, unquali
fed, would not hold water for a me
ment.
His theme was that "odium theolo
gicum" Of orthodoxy euphoniousl,
termed elimination for unbelief,"
dogma in itself utterly repugnant t
the finer, the gentler, the nobler in
StinctS of our common humanity, I'm
philosophical in its very essence, ant
out of harmony, as we believe, wit
some OF the most explicit teachings @
the New Testament itself. In the ser